Receive the latest national-international updates in your inbox

Program Educates High School Seniors About Getting to College

A D.C. program is educating some high school seniors of East African descent about how to apply and where to find the best college for them. Leon Harris reports. (Published Friday, April 26, 2019)

A program in D.C. helps immigrant high school students of East African heritage find the right college for them and fill out the best application, and it has helped more than 100 students get into some of the top schools in the country, including Harvard, Yale and MIT.

“I myself emigrated from Ethiopia in 2007 and so I have seen the cultural disconnect between myself and my high school counsellors, and these students have that same issue,” he said.

Police Release Body Cam Footage of 12-Year-Old's Arrest

Police released footage captured on two officers' body cameras during the seven-minute arrest of a 12-year-old boy in Sacramento.

(Published Thursday, May 23, 2019)

He believed it was important to focus on East African students because they’re often the first in their families to go to college and don’t understand the admissions process.

“Our students are all bilingual — a lot of them speak three or four languages,” Mesfin said. “They don’t think that a college should know that they work 30 hours a week after school. They don’t know that interpreting legal documents for their extended family, they don’t think that’s important enough to be jotted down on a college application.”

“I’m going with a full ride to Dartmouth, so that’s a very big accomplishment for me but also my family as well,” said one student who came to this country from Ethiopia in 2005.

Parents say Mesfin has been a godsend.

“He looks at them individually,” one parent said. “He spends a lot of time and then talks to them and sees what colleges fit for them.”

Tornadoes, Severe Storms Sweep Missouri, Killing 3

Three people died and two dozen others were injured in Missouri overnight after severe storms and tornadoes touched down on the state, ripping apart cars, homes and businesses. Meanwhile, storms and floods have swelled rivers and endangered other states in the Midwest.

(Published Thursday, May 23, 2019)

Mesfin said for him it’s all about the students and paying it forward.

“We could have been born anywhere in the world,” he said. “I did not choose my mom, nor did anyone else here, and that reality should compel us to be as helpful as possible.”

But Mesfin said IEA constantly has to turn students away because they don’t have the space or funding to help everyone.